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colors of early and late WW2 US naval airplanes


dutik

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Hello!

 

I am lookong for the right shade to paint a pre-war SBD in USMC colors and a Korean war Corsair (the Trumpy ones). Is Tamiyas dark blue ok as dark sea blue? For the pre-war SBD the instructions call out for a light grey. Is that correct or was it a metal finish? What overall colur to choose and which for the yellow wings? Would prefer Tamiya or Xtracrylics. BTW, what would be the correct shade for the green or red wing stripes?

 

Thank you in advance - dutik

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Thank you!

 

Trumpeters instructions for the SBD-1/2 in USMC colors with yellow wings call out for a grey Gunze color that is labeled as 16495. Thats odd, but given the fact, that they had some issues with the decals too... OK, will wait for the Yellowhammer decals and see, what color they request.

 

Regards! - dutik

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The standard paint scheme for pre-war yellow wing USN & USMC aircraft called for aluminum paint. I don't care what Trumpeter or anybody else says, I've got the Monogram USN colors & markings book on my desk, and it's about as authoritative as it comes. It quotes specific orders by number and date.

 

J

 

IIRC, we had this discussion before about the F3f or some other pre-war Naval aircraft and I thought the Monogram book called for aluminum paint on fabric surfaces, gloss light grey on metal surfaces, and the orange yellow on wings as you mentioned?

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The standard paint scheme for pre-war yellow wing USN & USMC aircraft called for aluminum paint. I don't care what Trumpeter or anybody else says, I've got the Monogram USN colors & markings book on my desk, and it's about as authoritative as it comes. It quotes specific orders by number and date.

 

J

I've been looking for volume one for a long time; any idea how much they go for now days?

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IIRC, we had this discussion before about the F3f or some other pre-war Naval aircraft and I thought the Monogram book called for aluminum paint on fabric surfaces, gloss light grey on metal surfaces, and the orange yellow on wings as you mentioned?

 

The scheme you quote is correct up to about 1934-35. After that, newly painted or reworked aircraft got aluminum lacquer overall on the fuselage. You still see pix of some aircraft -- notably SOCs and SBUs -- in the aluminum/gray scheme after the switchover.

 

:ph34r: Les (Friendly Airplane Asylum flack)

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  • 4 weeks later...
For the yellow wing scheme, the fuselage was painted aluminum (not natural metal), and the wings were Gloss Orange Yellow (FS 13538). Section markings would have been Insignia Red (FS 11136) or Willow Green (FS 14187).

 

To re-new the question:

 

Are there suggestions for acryl paints for the Orange Yellow, Insignia Red and Willow Green? I have Lifecolor, Gunze, Xtracryl, Tamiya and Revell (acryl) at hand, but they don't give you FS numbers at the label. Willow Green is a real hard nut, was not able to find a proper acryl paint even after looking at different color conversion charts. Any suggestions?

 

Regards! - dutik

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I have heard that Tamiya's spray 'Camel Yellow' is a good match for teh orange yellow. Squadron yellow is usually said to be 'Blue Angels Yellow' for the 'Lemon Yellow'

 

Seeing you are in Germany my American rail colors may not be really useful, but it gives an idea that you may want to look at other paint racks for the colors, cars, trains and even figures may give you useful colors

 

The red is a bone of contention. I like the railroad color from Polly Scale called 'Caboose Red' as it is a good 'bright' red. Insignia is a bit too dull or even brownish for pre-war colors to my eyes, but is still debated especially on Hyperscale.

 

Railroad colors also gave me my two 'close enough for me' colors Conrail Blue as the 'True Blue' and Burlington Northern Green is what I am using as 'Willow Green'. You also may want to look at Warhammer colors as they have many colors that look good as teh non-camo colors often used for details like oxygen bottles. My current favorite 'Snot Green'. They also do great acrylic metallics.

 

If you find some of the issues of Model Aircraft Monthly from a year or two ago they have a series of articles that included a paint cross reference chart and they gave us colors outside of the 'normal' military colors, especially for the 'colorful' non-camoflage colors like those used as the squadron colors on USN aircraft in the Gull Gray era. They looked to be awfully close to what the pre-war colors were to me.

 

You also may want to look at Yellow Wings decals and Wayne Trevlin as he is the source of lots of info (and decal sheets) for pre-war USN aircraft - including the SBD-1. Now I could have sworn he did a 32nd set of decals for teh SBD-1 but I'm not seeing them (48th ones do exist)

 

http://www.yellow-wingsdecals.com/decals/index.php

 

SBD-2 yellow wing scheme. I am now convinced that these SBDs did leave the factory in this scheme but were repainted in the light gray by the time they got operational.

http://yellow-wingsdecals.com/decals/popup_image.php?pID=76

 

It has a few chevrons but they may be easier to mask in 32nd than they are in 48th for me.

 

Happy Modeling

matt

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Thank you. I am into Warhammer Fantasy Battles too, so Snot green is somewhere at hand. Will have a look. I am aware of the railway colors and other US stuff (still reading american modelling magazines like FSm and MMiR, not to mention the www), but I can't get them without a vast expense of money. The actual security standards for shipping makes things even much more complicated - most US online shops refuse to ship paint bottles overseas...

 

Otherwise I have the Yellowwing decals for the SBD-1 at hand (both markings and stencils), but they give you just the plain instructions of were to place them. Nothing about the painting of the aircraft beside a 3-side view in color, no color designations, no FS numbers, nothing. They even don't tell you if the hull was bare metal or painted aluminium color (or maybe white, given the print :evil_laugh: ).

 

Other suggestions?

 

Regards! - dutik

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